Well as you most likely figured out by now – I’ve been taking a break. I apologize for not posting or creating any new podcasts as of late but I’ve been very busy with a few things that have taken my time to the max! I PROMISE that within a few weeks from this posting I will again,be back on the regular schedule of a post and podcast about every 10 days. Thanks for your patience and thanks for all of your e-mails! I can’t wait to get back in the MojoStudio and get this party started again!

I was out of town this weekend and happened to spend some time at the local mall. It was decorated with giant holiday bulbs hanging from the 3-story atrium, garland everywhere, and humongous boxes of presents wrapped all pretty. There were candy canes the size of trees, nut-cracker statues standing guard at every entrance, and the sounds of the holidays were playing on the PA system.

I walked into this winter wonderland and immediately felt happy and jolly! Within about 3 minutes, that feeling changed! I was headed for the food court which was at the other end of the mall. I was going with traffic and walking in pace with the flow of the crowd. I quickly noticed a group of kids fighting and yelling at each other. A small crowd had gathered around them and was cheering on the fight. A few more paces and I was bumped by a woman running out of a store at 90 Mph. I don’t know if she had just stolen something or if she had been called to an emergency or what but she darted from the storefront as if she were Flo Jo. After almost being knocked over, I continued on my way. I got to the elevator and stood well clear of the door. When it opened, a woman backed out of it pulling a stroller and continued backing and plowed down my 10 year-old daughter. After my daughter had picked herself up and I had said “excuse me ma’am someone’s behind you” the woman glared at me and my little girl and said something to the effect of “!@#$% you – get out of my !@#@#%! way.” Again, my girl and I were standing about 30 feet from the elevator at the time. I’m not sure why the woman backed all the way across the hall without looking.

Ok…so now I’m on the elevator a bit miffed. The holiday glow and the jolliness that I got when I entered the place was slowly disappearing. I go to the food court and stood in line at the counter. There was one person in line who was talking on her cell and kept asking the cashier to wait to take her order. After about 10 minutes of her breaking up with her boyfriend on the phone, the woman finally placed order and I was able to order. “I’ll have the 6.99 Chinese Special with a water” I said. “That will be 12.99” the cashier said. “I’m sorry, I only ordered 1 special” I politely said. I asked the cashier how this mathematical miracle could have happened and after about 5 minutes of her just saying “12.99” and smiling, I gave up and gave her the money and took my golden meal.

Ok…I could go on… but my experience this past weekend illustrates how easy it is to have a happy mood ruined. How easy it is to fall into the bah humbug mode around the holidays. Everyone is hurried and harried this time of year and all you have to do is step outside your door and it seems that there are reasons to hate the season. My advice however is what you’d expect – DON’T!

Don’t hate the season and don’t let the hustle of it get you down. Don’t swear off the holidays because of the commercialization or the fact that 95% of the people you encounter this time of year SEEM to have forgotten about the real reason for the holidays and instead only think of their lists, their rushing, and their lack of time. Don’t become a scrooge! Don’t let it happen. Remember, YOU control how you feel. Your feelings are YOUR OWN and you are in charge. If you want to get mad at others for plowing down your daughter, fighting, charging you a 2nd mortgage for lunch then it is YOU and YOU alone who have made yourself mad. I could have been upset the rest of the evening and let myself stew over the blatant absurdity of the mall scene but I didn’t.

Although I got upset at the moment, I quickly realized that I wanted to have fun the rest of the day so let it slide off my back and focused on other things – namely spending time with my children. That was what made me happy. That was what defined my day. Not the dumb things that happened during our lunch at the mall.

It’s sometimes difficult to take charge of your feelings when lots of bad things are happening but you can do it. You CAN do it! Focus on those things that will get you through the bad times or the unpleasant experiences. Focus on those things that you can look forward to. Refocus on those things that are positive in a situation. By continually focusing on the negative and on those things that cause you angst, you are building on a foundation of negativity and that negative foundation will surely lead to destruction and unhappiness if left unchecked.

Remember P.A.C.E. – A positive attitude cures everything. During this time of year, remember P.A.C.E. Remember what makes you happy. Think of those things that cause you great joy. If we can do these simple things, then we are well on our way to a no-bah-humbug holiday!

Ever have those times when it seems like everyone is coming down on your butt? Those times when people in your professional and/or personal life try to micro-manage every detail of what you do and who you are? It happens to everyone. No one is immune to this. It will happen many times over a lifetime and we all know this. We all will also play the role of micro-managers at one or more times in our lives. It’s part of life and it comes in spurts at various levels in various segments of our lives. At times we and others are very engaged…too engaged in things…and at times we are disengaged …sometimes too disengaged.

How do we deal with it when it happens to us? This is the question. At first, our initial reaction may be one of anger. “How can this person tell me what to do” is what we say to ourselves. “What right do they have to act this way” we ask ourselves. It is doubly difficult when this micro-management comes from loved ones or good friends. We wonder why they are doing this. We wonder who they turned into. We wonder why this person is power-tripping! A whole host of emotions come into play. Anger, rage, fear, sadness, abandonment, etc…these feelings eat away at us…they sometimes consume us and cause massive amounts of stress and worry. We want to yell…we want to curl up and cry…all of these emotions are present when we feel like we are not in control of our lives and someone else is or is trying to control us.

Oftentimes small things get blown out of proportion when we are being micro-manged. They get blown out of proportion by all parties involved and it becomes a situation where people can’t see the forest for the self-constructed trees they have put up. Escalation occurs and pretty soon people don’t know what they are arguing about. This often leads to unfortunate and unintended consequences and whether or not they realize it at the time, EVERY one involved on ALL sides ultimately suffers. Maybe one person suffers immediately, but sooner or later all parties suffer emotionally and otherwise.

Micro-management in one’s personal or professional life is basically an issue of trust. We don’t micro-manage the ones we trust. Period. When trust is broken or even when it is not broken in reality but it’s perceived to be broken, everyoe has a tendency to control at the smallest of levels. This ultimately never works. History has shown that all micro-managers be they personal-life micro managers or professional-life micro managers may gain in the short term, but in the long term they do not. It’s just like our mothers told us when we were kids. That cookie may taste sweet now but in a few years your teeth will be rotting away and you’ll be left with nothing.

It’s true. I’ve micro-managed before. I’ve been with left with nothing. I’ve had relationships at work and at home go bad and never recover because of my instance on control and micro-managing.

It’s true. I’ve been micro-managed before. I’ve been left in the lurch and have been cast aside due to micro-management. Again, I was left with nothing to do but pick up the pieces of something that was once good.

I don’t know why I’m talking about this honestly but these words and thoughts seemed to come out so very easily and fluently today that I had to share. I guess at this time of Thanksgiving, it’s so important to be thankful for what we have and for all of the good things in our lives. I preach this in my podcasts and in my public speaking. Be thankful for those people in your lives…those situations that seem unimportant in our lives but are really the important things …those times of change that suck when we are going through them but ultimately move us (if we let it) to a better and higher and more informed plane of existence. Ultimately unless we commit the most heinous crime like murder or rape, etc…nothing is so bad that we cannot forgive and move beyond it to live a much fuller and happier life with others. It’s true that 95% of the things that we think are “major” and we get so upset about are things that ultimately aren’t THAT bad to begin with.

B e thankful, forgive, love, and try to keep it down with the micro-management crap ok!

I recently opened the daily pile of bills and such that come into my mailbox and as I was looking over my mortgage payment coupon for the month, there was an advertisement within it touting the benefits of Mortgage Protection Life Insurance. “What if something happened to you?” the message asked.

“Would your house be paid off or would your loved ones be left with the bill? This could mean they’d have to leave the home you have built for them.”

A pretty grim message I have to say but one that I thought about…so I looked at the information about the insurance…it all seemed good. It said it would pay off the farm if…well…if in fact literally ‘bought the farm.’ “Hmmm…” I pondered. “Maybe I should take this insurance out…maybe it is a good idea,” I thought to myself. So I read on and there was this funny sheet of fine print…you know the kind…the little teenie tiny paragraph that is always in a different font and sometimes even hard-to-read ink.

As I read the fine print (listen to podcast for the complete reading of the fine print – it’s a hoot!) I realized that the only way this policy would pay off my house was if I died of old age. Yes that’s right…every possible exclusion was written into this policy including dying of “an illness diagnosed previously or in the future” and “being involved in any form of accident. That pretty much leaves old age as the only possible way it would pay off!

This got me to thinking that things are not always what they seem in life. If it is too good to be true, then it probably is right? We’ve heard that for generations! So how do we deal with this axiom of life without becoming a jaded skeptic not believing anything we hear or see? Here are a few things that can help:

Well as you all know I haven’t uploaded a podcast since September. It’s been about a month and no podcast and no postings here. I wanted to apologize for this and let you know that I plan to tape another podcast very soon. I’ve been having some personal problems…yes even motivated mojos like me have personal issues that they must attend to from time to time. This has caused me to get behind on my podcasting and for that I apologize! I do have several podcasts in mind – one is called “Things are not always as they seem” and the other one is called “It Ain’t My Job Man!”

I will be recording these two podcasts within the next week or so. Again, thanks for staying with me during this time.

Living in Ohio has good points and bad points. I’m not going to dwell on the bad points, but one of the good points is that we have four seasons. And to me, Fall – especially between September and late October – is the best!

It has been oppressively hot here most of the summer…90’s and high humidity…the other day though, I walked outside to leave my office and I immediately felt and smelled it. FALL WAS HERE! It was amazing how within an instant, a front had moved through and the breeze changed, the smell in the air changed, and the sky became that crisp fall blue color.

On the drive home that evening, I realized how beautiful life is and how wonderful all of the smells, sights, sounds, and tastes of fall truly are. They are truly things to be happy about! I thought I’d share a small list of things to think about as you go through your day…some simple things just to be happy about…they all have different meanings for us but they are things that we can rejoice in and enjoy and when we think of them they bring a smile to our faces.

You can fill in your list…add to this one…or just think of things that make you happy. I bet that if I pressed you you’d be able to come up with hundreds of things that make you happy. We all have them…we all know what makes us truly happy but so many times we get bogged down in life…we forget about those things that make us the happiest…we dwell on the things that tick us off and make us unhappy. It’s easier to do. It’s not what’s best to do – dwell on the unhappy part – but it’s what’s easiest. The same is true of smiling – an expression associated with happiness – it is easier for the muscles to frown than it is to smile.

So if it’s true that it’s easier to frown and easier to think of the things that make us unhappy then we must make a concerted effort to try to be happy! It takes work…it takes lots of work…but being happy is what really gets our mojo working and motivates us to be the best we can be…

So take time out today and everyday to stop – think happy thoughts – and LIVE!!!

If you are reading this from the U.S., then I hope your Labor Day holiday was a good one. Mine was absolutely fabulous…lots of time with the family then I was in a parade on Monday. I have a 1968 Mustang Show Car and I got to drive it in the parade. It was fun. What was even cooler was the number of people who came out in early morning to see the parade and how happy everyone was. I live in a small town and although it’s only 20 miles from a major metro area of around 2.5 million, the town I live in is a wonderful slice of Mid-Western Americana.

The streets were lined with parents and kids sitting in their lawn chairs clapping, waving, and cheering. As I drove down the parade route at a snails pace and saw everyone, I was reminded, indeed, that was what it was all about. Kids sitting on their parent’s laps, parents walking with strollers while their babies blissfully slept, senior citizens taking pictures of their grandchildren who were in the parade…it was what life in America is about…

When we get blue…when we feel down…when we think that this country is going “down the tubes” (has anyone ever seen these tubes by the way?) then we should think of scenes like the one I witnessed on Labor Day 2007. America is not going down the tubes…we are not hopeless…scenes like the one I witnessed is testament to this. We are a wonderful group of eclectic people who, at base, like everyone else in the world, just want to live with those we care about and be as happy as we can be. Nothing more…nothing less.

That’s all we want in life right…just to be happy. My challenge to you is to find your motivational mojo…to find those passions in your life and to just be happy!

Well I’ve finally found a blog home! This is it! After experimenting with several blog interfaces, I’ve finally found one that I actually like! Nothing fancy…no crazy and wild javascript (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but just something simple and clean.

This will be the home of motivationalmojo.com from now on. So enjoy the look and enjoy the features and know that I’ll be not only posting notes from my motivational mojo podcasts, but also daily commentary and personal insight as I see fit and have time. Please feel free to comment on anything here and to be part of the mojo!

Doing the Motivational Mojo Podcast each week has been a great experience. We’ve been getting quite a few of regular downloads on iTunes of our podcast so there’s obviously some folks out there who like what they hear. It’s very heartening to know that people are listening. I hope we can keep the momentum going and help to maximize everyone’s motivational mojo!!

These past few months have been rather hectic with many things happening in my own life…most have been very stressful and many that could have caused my own motivational mojo meltdown. Fortunately though these weekly podcasts have helped ME to keep practicing what I preach. So many times we “know” how to keep our mojo motivated, but that knowledge gets bogged down in the day-to-day stuff called life. Pretty soon with all the stuff happening, we forget to maintain our motivational mojo by taking stock of who we are. Taking a few minutes out of the day or a small chunk out of the week can help us to gain stock of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we want to go. It can help us to get there…to keep the eyes to on the prize so-to-speak. I know doing these podcasts each week have helped maintain my motivational mojo…hopefully the Motivational Mojo Podcasts will help maintain yours too!